Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes we look at stories
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In our last episode, where
Speaker 1: the Bodies Lie, we looked at the tale of William
Speaker 1: Burke and William Hare, who in the early nineteenth century
Speaker 1: murdered sixteen people in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Westport Murders, as
Speaker 1: they have come to be known, constitute perhaps the most
Speaker 1: infamous murder spree in Scottish history. But what makes this
Speaker 1: story especially interesting to me is the wider context within
Speaker 1: which it occurred. Today we might refer to Burke and
Speaker 1: Hare as serial murderers, but in many ways this label
Speaker 1: masks what was really at play. It is impossible to
Speaker 1: speculate whether these two men would have gone on to
Speaker 1: commit similar crimes, or indeed if they had murdered before.
Speaker 1: But what is known in the case of the murders
Speaker 1: in question is that there were a product of market
Speaker 1: forces as much as anything else. In other words, the
Speaker 1: Westport Murders of what happens when financial desperation converges with
Speaker 1: an illicit but desperate demand thinking more about it, these
Speaker 1: murders brought to mind a very modern equivalent. One evening
Speaker 1: in August two and thirteen in the town of Fenchee
Speaker 1: in North China, six year old Binbin was playing outside
Speaker 1: his home while his mother tidied up after dinner. When
Speaker 1: it was time to call him back inside, however, the
Speaker 1: boy was no longer there. Having checked the house and
Speaker 1: found no sign of him there either, the woman and
Speaker 1: her husband began frantically searching the nearby streets as other
Speaker 1: relatives joined in to help. They searched for three hours
Speaker 1: until one of them was alerted by the sound of
Speaker 1: a child's pained cries coming from a nearby field. Racing
Speaker 1: to the source of the cry, the parents found their
Speaker 1: son alive, but clearly in extreme distress, with his face
Speaker 1: covered in blood. Gathering him up, they rushed immediately to
Speaker 1: the nearest hospital, telling the doctor that he must have
Speaker 1: somehow fallen over and hurt himself. The boy appeared to
Speaker 1: be bleeding from his eyes, peeling back the lids, the
Speaker 1: doctor was horrified to discover that his eyes were no
Speaker 1: longer there. The boy later revealed that somebody had abducted him,
Speaker 1: telling him when he started to cry. If he stayed quiet,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't gouge out his eyes, only to do exactly that.
Speaker 1: The young boy was thought by police to have been
Speaker 1: just the next in a long line of victims in
Speaker 1: an ever growing black market trade for organs. In China alone,
Speaker 1: it's estimated that roughly three hundred thousand people will require
Speaker 1: an organ donation of one kind or another, yet only
Speaker 1: ten thousand will be able to find one due to
Speaker 1: a drastic shortage of donors. In two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: Mohammed Salim Khan, from the town of mere Route in
Speaker 1: northern India was working as a laborer, earning on average
Speaker 1: two dollars a day. Most days, Khan would head down
Speaker 1: to a local street corner where site managers would look
Speaker 1: to recruit builders for any work that needed doing. One morning,
Speaker 1: having been waiting for some time without any luck, Karn
Speaker 1: was approached by a man asking if he'd be interested
Speaker 1: in taking a three month job in Delhi, located some
Speaker 1: eighty miles away, for three dollars a day. In a
Speaker 1: country that, despite its great wealth, still has around three
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty million people surviving on a dollar a day,
Speaker 1: it was a difficult offer to turn down. After making
Speaker 1: his own way to Delhi, Khan arrived at the contact
Speaker 1: address he had been given, only to then be taken
Speaker 1: to another address in the town of Gurgwn, just over
Speaker 1: the border in the next state. Khn was then led
Speaker 1: into a building in which two armed men were waiting
Speaker 1: to receive him for the next two weeks. Kahn was
Speaker 1: refused permission to leave. However, since he was being well
Speaker 1: fed and promised that he would still be paid for
Speaker 1: his time, Kahn felt he had no reason to complain
Speaker 1: until one day, when, having strangely not being given any food.
Speaker 1: That morning, someone came to take his blood. When Karn
Speaker 1: inquired what it was for, another pointed a gun at
Speaker 1: his head and told him not to ask questions if
Speaker 1: he wanted to live. A short time later, someone else
Speaker 1: arrived to administer an injection. When Karn protested, he was
Speaker 1: told not to worry and that it was good for him.
Speaker 1: Khan watched with alarm as the needle went in. A
Speaker 1: soft chill rushed through his body and into his head,
Speaker 1: and then everything went black. The next thing Karn remembered
Speaker 1: was coming around in a bed with the sense of
Speaker 1: someone standing over him and a horrific pain in his
Speaker 1: back as his eyes adjusted, that someone became a man
Speaker 1: in a surgical mask. Your kidney has been removed, he said.
Speaker 1: If you tell anyone, we will find you and shoot.
Speaker 1: Carn took a moment to process it all. Then clushed
Speaker 1: at his side. Pulling up his shirt, he discovered a
Speaker 1: large piece of wadding taped to his body, and underneath
Speaker 1: it a ten inch red raw incision stitched together by
Speaker 1: thick surgical thread. Cahn, whose work supported five children, his
Speaker 1: mother and two sisters, was later told by doctors he
Speaker 1: would never be able to work as a laborer again,
Speaker 1: and he received nothing for his kidney. Are you always
Speaker 1: taking care of your family? Do you often take care
Speaker 1: of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take
Speaker 1: care of yourself, to make time for you. You deserve it.
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Speaker 1: help you get back to feeling your best, to feeling
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Speaker 1: available seven days a week from seven am to nine
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Speaker 1: Unexplained Podcast. Mohammed Khan had been the victim of a
Speaker 1: long running and wide ranging organ harvesting ring led by
Speaker 1: a man calling himself doctor Amit Kumar at the time.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety four, Kumar, who was then known as
Speaker 1: doctor Santosh Rout was arrested for similar offenses, but later
Speaker 1: jumped bail before changing his name and re establishing his
Speaker 1: criminal network. Officers, reacting to a tip off from one
Speaker 1: of doctor Kumar's recruiters, raided the operation's headquarters just days
Speaker 1: after Mohammed Khan's kidney was stolen from him. Unfortunately, Kumar
Speaker 1: was able to escape and remains at large today. What
Speaker 1: they did find, however, was evidence that the operation as
Speaker 1: is often found to be the case with similar operations
Speaker 1: had infiltrated much of the legitimate healthcare industry, with many
Speaker 1: individuals in Delhi's medical community thought to be aware of
Speaker 1: what was going on. As was pointed out in a
Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen Newsweek article written by Jason Overdorff,
Speaker 1: such crimes are often very hard to prosecute, as many
Speaker 1: of the victims are seen to have entered into the
Speaker 1: arrangement willingly, with extremety, forcing them to accept money for
Speaker 1: their organs. Since this effectively makes them part of the
Speaker 1: criminal venture, they are often unwilling to reveal their involvement
Speaker 1: to the police. As Jason Overdorff stated, doctor Kumar's network
Speaker 1: was thought to have involved at least four doctors, five nurses,
Speaker 1: twenty paramedics, three private hospitals, ten pathology clinics, and five
Speaker 1: diagnostic centers. Though in this instance the crimes were perpetrated
Speaker 1: in China and India, respectively, they are servicing an international demand.
Speaker 1: At the end of the chain will inevitably be a
Speaker 1: wealthy individual from virtually anywhere in the world, driven by
Speaker 1: their own desperation to live or to save the life
Speaker 1: of a loved one. According to recent figures at organ
Speaker 1: DONA dot gov. In the US, over one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirteen thousand people are currently on the National Transplant waiting List,
Speaker 1: with one being added every ten minutes, and of that number,
Speaker 1: twenty will die each day still waiting for a donor.
Speaker 1: With statistics like that, there is no wonder that a
Speaker 1: thriving black market has developed to service the shortfall. Recent
Speaker 1: statistics from the World Health Organization suggest that as many
Speaker 1: as eleven thousand organs are trafficked and sold on the
Speaker 1: black market throughout the world each year, with the average
Speaker 1: buyer thought to spend in the region of one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars, and the average donor, if they
Speaker 1: are lucky enough to get anything at all, pocketing just
Speaker 1: over three percent of that for their efforts. If you
Speaker 1: enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters,
Speaker 1: you can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com forward
Speaker 1: slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small,
Speaker 1: are massively appreciated. All elements have Unexplained are produced by
Speaker 1: me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show
Speaker 1: on iTunes and feel free to get in touch with
Speaker 1: any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on
Speaker 1: the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own
Speaker 1: you'd like to share. You can reach us online at
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and
Speaker 1: Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward slash Unexplained Now, it's
Speaker 1: time to take care of yourself. To make time for you.
Speaker 1: Teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help
Speaker 1: you get back to feeling your best. Speak to a
Speaker 1: licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am
Speaker 1: to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc
Speaker 1: Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the
Speaker 1: app or visitteldoc dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast Today
Speaker 1: to get started. That's t e l a d oc
Speaker 1: dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast